This lesson provides an opportunity for primary children to see different kinds of families.

A child's drawing of a family

Introduction

Most primary course books include a unit on families, but they are usually very traditional, with a mum, dad, brother and sister. This lesson provides teachers and primary children with an opportunity to see different kinds of families that might better reflect their own experiences. In this lesson primary children do a series of simple and supported vocabulary and reading activities which lead to them writing about their own families. At the end of the lesson they draw pictures of their families and they make a classroom display of their texts and pictures.

Learning outcomes:

  • Use family vocabulary 
  • Identify key language in short descriptions of different families
  • Write simple sentences about your own family using 'I've got' and 'My family is...'
  • Some learners write sentences using present simple tense and other structures

Age and level:

5-8, 9-12 (A1)

Time:

Approximately 45-50 minutes

Materials:

Several options are presented for this lesson. Teachers can use just paper and pencils or crayons for drawing. They can also use any or a mix of the following:

  • Presentation (PowerPoint or PDF)
  • Descriptions of families (PDF)
  • Images of families (PDF)

These can be downloaded below along with the lesson plan in PDF format. 

Language Level

Comments

Submitted by Jason Jixun M… on Fri, 05/25/2018 - 01:52

In my mind, this course plan belongs to the part of 'Family Education', which can also be brought to classroom, public activities and much wide scenes. In the beautiful and curious eyes of our kids, some normal situations, good life conditions, different details and even strange things (from outside views)... from their parents and regarding with their family-structure can all be put into descriptive (interesting and innocent) languages and a great tolerability, by the reason that those were in their real lives. When reading those words, as a teacher, I usually felt very touched. In this time, it's especially about: Maya's and Eric's descriptions and pictures... Their words even have expressed some new hopes in an all-inclusive and opened society-formation in the future that some adults and traditional thinking ways cannot totally & bravely accept. However, a harmony, but from their eyes, has been composed out from their real life details, such as a Sunday lunch or a piece of fantastic home-made cake... The reason is that, their innocent eyes have all reflected LOVE as a main theme. This point, in my mind, can be made of some deep considerations and self-reflexivity by ourselves (adults). In addition, the structure of this course plan is very clear and operational - from outside demonstration (how to draw on board) to their inside self-expression (draw my own...), course's impression and motivation have absorbed and transformed as the self-observation and the personalized appreciation, from which the confidence and new hope of life can be constructed. Therefore, I would like to support this 'small but full of positive energy' course plan!

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